It is well-known that information produced and stored in electronic form is expanding at an ever-increasing rate. Entire industries have sprung up to provide tools for harnessing this “information explosion,” including electronic storage systems, database management systems, and others. In addition, Internet-based technology has made information, on the World Wide Web (WWW) and/or private networks, extremely accessible to the average user. Nevertheless, it is also well-known that the growth in the amount of information available can make a user's search for specific and/or relevant information extremely difficult.
Search engines have become very popular tools for finding relevant information resources, and a wide variety of search engines are available. In general, search engines execute algorithms that determine the relevance of information resources in a body of information (hereinafter a “data collection”), based on search criteria specified by a user. Each search engine implements a different algorithm to “score” (i.e., assign a measurement of relevance to) the resources in a data collection. Resources deemed sufficiently relevant are provided to the user as “search results,” often in the form of HTML hyperlinks to the resources. However, the effectiveness of a search engine can be limited by the data collection itself. In particular, because resources may be added, deleted and/or modified at any time, a search query executed on a data collection containing these resources at one time may produce one set of results, and at another time produce quite a different set of results. Thus, a user who finds a relevant resource by executing a search query may fail to find the resource again by re-executing the same query, even if the second execution of the query occurs a short time after the first. Even more problematic, the user may not recall the precise details of the search query, and thus may not be able to re-execute it.
While these inadequacies are significant with respect to providing access to public information resources (e.g., those available via the WWW), they are perhaps even more substantial with respect to providing access to private resources (e.g., those used by individual businesses and other organizations). An organization's private resources may contain information which is of great importance to its overall success, and which is needed for specific endeavors. For example, an organization involved in a litigation must be able to quickly and easily access information resources which are relevant to the suit. Because it may not be immediately apparent which resources are relevant, a search for relevant resources may be required. Once the relevant resources are identified, users may need to access them on a recurring basis, and may require that retrieval be quick and easy.
Private resources may require other storage and retrieval capabilities not required for public information resources. For example, private resources may need to be archived (e.g., on storage media which do not provide direct access, such as magnetic tape) for long periods, yet retrieved quickly when needed. Access to specific private resources may need to be restricted to only certain individuals. Users may also need the capability to specify that certain private resources should not be modified and/or destroyed.